


lichtenberg love song

by fourteentimes



Series: you won the war [1]
Category: HELIOS Rising Heroes (Video Game)
Genre: Future Fic, Getting Together, M/M, Scars, hearing loss, mentions of Marion Blythe/Leonard Wright Jr.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27550732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourteentimes/pseuds/fourteentimes
Summary: Leo will be like the lightning, the light that will split and splinter over the city and vanish in what feels like a flash. A moment of breathtaking beauty, gone in an instant. Faith will be the thunder, a ponderous and rumbling and furious thing that crashes through and lingers before it rolls sweetly away.(or, Leo has lightning scars and Faith spends the next four years learning about them.)
Relationships: Faith Beams/Leonard Wright Jr.
Series: you won the war [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2013853
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17





	lichtenberg love song

**Author's Note:**

> happy early birthday to [@xiuseok](https://twitter.com/xiuseok) on twitter!!! i am early. i got excited. 
> 
> i am extremely prepared for this to be jossed by hapiele, and i, in fact, look forward to it. bring it on.

The first time it happens, they're a few months into being pros, and Faith can hardly stay upright. Junior lends him a shoulder the entire way back, jaw set and eyes forward and stiff upper lip and all that. Never mind that he's about a good gust of wind away from keeling over himself. There are parts of Faith that ache that he hadn't even known could hurt. Turns out that being thrown into a wall is much harder to recover from than the movies would lead you to believe. The last time he plays hero for Junior, Faith tells himself as he tries to keep his vision from swimming so badly. Besides, Junior handled himself, firing off discharge after discharge when Faith couldn't keep up anymore, ears ringing and brain rattling from trying to protect them. 

He'd been the one to beat out the rest of the goons. Not Faith. The bile in the back of his throat isn't all just because his head won't stop spinning.

They don't have to make it all the way back to the drop point thanks to Keith driving up to meet them somewhere between the tiny side street they'd been cornered on and their usual rendezvous. Faith's brain feels like it's still knocking around in his skull to the bass-boosted reverb that keeps his fingers trembling as Keith lifts him with deceptively conscientious care to lay him across the backseat. 

"You did better than I thought you would," he can hear Keith say, but he sounds underwater and far away. The car rumbles to life, but even the smooth purr of the engines feels too loud right now. 

"No thanks to you," Junior grumbles. Faith might make a noise in agreement. It might also just be a wounded sound from the way Keith seems to be finding every bump in the road. "What, you couldn't come looking?" 

"Struck the whole sector," Keith says with his "just-what-do-you-want-from-me" tone. "Called in who I could." 

"And you didn't think we could be in trouble!?" Too loud. Junior is too loud, and Faith's ears are ringing, and he can't even find the strength to tell him to keep it down. "Look at the shitty DJ! He's terrible! What if he died or something?!" 

Faith isn't sure if he blacks out or if Keith really doesn't say anything in reply because the next thing he thinks he sees is Keith grabbing Junior by the wrist. His vision is hazy, especially when he tries to sit upright and his arms give out on him. 

"Looks like you're a real hero now, huh, kid?" 

Whatever Junior says in reply gets lost in the darkness. 

\---

When Faith comes to, it's in a bed in medical back at HQ. There's a ringing in his ears that takes a few extra seconds to fade after he wakes. The lights are on, and the curtains are drawn, and time is meaningless as he staggers off the bed. His jacket is tattered, but from the way his back twinge as he pulls it on, the more covered he is, the better. Sticking around to lie in bed when Nova or Victor could show up at any time seems less and less appealing, and his own bed is calling its siren call, so he heads out.

He makes it back to their shared room, hand on the wall to keep steady, and blessedly doesn't pass a single person on the way. It must be late, but Junior still isn't asleep. Instead, he's fastidiously covering his arm in wound dressings. Angry red whorls like tree branches spread across the delicate, pale skin of his arm, only to be covered away by Junior's sharp, sure movements. Like they were never even there. Like a trick of the light. He doesn't remember when Junior had taken a hit to the arm, but the entire second half of their fight is a bit blurry. 

"You're supposed to be under observation all night," Junior says with a scowl. He shoves the medical supplies--a roll of tape, the plastic wrappers of too many dressings, and gauze--under his covers. "The fuck are you doing back?" 

Face planting into bed is easier than responding or taking off his jacket or literally anything else. The bed doesn't ask questions. The bed just holds him nicely and soothes the ache in his back just a little. 

"Doesn’t medical kind of suck anyways?" Faith says into his pillow. 

"Don't come to training tomorrow then, if you're just going to be like this," Junior says. 

"Did I ask you to care, Ochibi-chan?"

"I'm not, shitty DJ. Fuck if I'm going to let you lose me a day of training." 

When Junior hits the lights a second later and the room is finally dark enough that it soothes the headache starting to build again, the intricately, orderly red design he caught a glimpse of on Junior’s arm is the last thing he thinks about before Faith slips into sleep. 

\---

It’s not an obsession, Faith tells himself. 

It’s not because it’s out of sight, out of mind. Junior keeps his arm wrapped up tight for a few days, wearing longer sleeves than usual, and Faith only gets the barest glimpse of sunburn-like marks when the bottom of his sleeves pull up. The only sign that Faith has that he’s even still hurt anymore is the wrappers from dressings stuffed down into their bathroom trash and Junior hissing every time he gets thrown especially hard on his right side when they’re sparring together. 

The whorls look like flowers when Faith closes his eyes. 

He makes a mix and plays it at his next gig and doesn’t think about Junior or the determined grit in his teeth or the singular shred of real fear and real confidence that he showed out in the field that day. 

The crowd doesn’t care, dances along with the pounding bass that Faith has turned up so high he can feel it in his teeth, but Faith remembers the stoic and stalwart and  _ solid _ figure that Junior cut and buries the mix as far into his computer as he can the next day. 

\---

Faith doesn’t let himself think about Junior and his feather-flower burns after that. 

\---

There’s no rest for the wicked or something like that, not even when you try to celebrate one entire year of somehow (sort of) not breaking apart and imploding as a unit. (No thanks to Junior, but he already reached his quota of needling Junior about that today.) 

Dino treats them to pizza, and everything, in a word, explodes.

(Goes to shit is how Junior will describe it later, months later, after they’ve both processed the bombing in their own way and it’s just an uncomfortable, but distant memory.)

The debris is still settling around them, dusty and thick. Faith coughs a dry cough, like he’s trying to hack out his lungs. The dust tastes chalky in the back of his throat still. They  _ should _ consider themselves lucky that Faith was able to make them even this little space. His ears don’t stop ringing, and it’s enough to almost knock him off his knees trying to get upright. The ceiling is low, too low to even stand, but something groans in the distance. Not on top of them, but not far enough away for comfort. He’s not taking any more chances than he has to with it with too many floors of rubble hanging over their heads. 

“Hey, come on, stay awake,” Faith hisses. He doesn’t deliver the softest slaps to Junior’s cheeks, but he can forgive Faith later when the adrenaline is running lower. Provided there’s a later and all that jazz. 

“‘M up,” Junior mumbles in too sleepy a voice with too sluggish a retaliation, pushing against Faith’s hands as he struggles to sit up. 

“Hey, slow down, we’re not going anywhere right now.” Not that there’s anywhere to go. Faith presses a hand tight against the nasty cut in Junior’s side. Even in the narrow space, there’s enough room for him to shrug off his jacket and rip the sleeves to soak up the blood. It’s far from sterile, but it’s the best he has right now. He keeps pressing until Junior gives a low groan, struggling weakly against him, and only then does he pull back. “I didn’t ask you to jump in front of me, you know.”

“We’re teammates.” Junior says it like it’s easy. Simple. Matter of fact. They’re teammates. They’re on the same side, and that’s the whole of it. He bats weakly at Faith’s chest, but he still lets himself be moved onto his back. Junior winces and lets out a quiet whine before Faith finally gets him situated with the rest of his jacket supporting Junior’s head like a makeshift pillow. 

His t-shirt is too thin, he decides, with the sweat cooling on the back of his neck and gooseflesh rising on his arms. There’d been a chill in the air, but it’s all the more pronounced now with the building in ruins around them. 

The light is low, too low to see anything but shiny slickness seeping onto his hands as he tries to fold over another part of his sleeve to staunch the bleeding. He can barely make out Junior’s eyes fluttering shut in the darkness. 

“Tell me about your arm thing.” 

“My what?” He can’t see the colors in Junior’s eyes like this, but at least they’re open. 

“The marks.” 

Red. Like flowers, like curling tree branches, like feathers and fractals. The lines cut across Junior’s arms that he can’t always hide quickly enough, smaller and fainter since that first time, but there nonetheless. 

(Maybe he hasn’t been so good about stopping himself from dwelling on those scars after all.) 

“...lightning.” Junior says it like it pains him. 

(If Faith were more pedantic, some snarky part of him would think that it  _ does _ pain him. He’s seen how gingerly Junior moves sometimes, the blistering aftermath.) 

“When it’s too much,” Junior says slowly, and Faith’s not sure if it’s from gathering his thoughts or if he’s just hurt that badly, “it goes in.” 

“You get them a lot.” Dryness feels best. What else is Faith supposed to say? Condolences? They don’t do that, pitying each other. Getting emotional about it. Trying to fix things. Offer to kiss it and make it better? Maybe if they were somewhere else and not trapped under too much rubble and Junior wasn’t maybe an hour from bleeding out. 

“Shut up.” There’s none of the same heat behind it, though. Echoes, maybe. That’s probably a good sign. “I’m trying.”

When silence lapses between them, Faith thinks he might be able to hear the shifting of rocks and beams in the distance. Sirens. The panic of voices and rush of people. They weren’t close to the entrance of the building, maybe twenty or thirty feet in, so it’ll still be a while yet before rescue workers reach them. 

“You’re lucky, y’know.” Junior’s voice is a thin, warbling thing in the quiet. The sounds of rubble and glass being shifted are getting closer. Faith wonders idly if Keith is out there helping with the excavation. He doesn't know how much Junior is still bleeding-- _ if _ he's still bleeding. Everything is already slick, slick, slick under his fingers. He’ll be scrubbing under his nails for days trying to wash away the feeling of Junior’s blood sliding over his hands. 

“Why?” 

“That your Substance doesn’t get you like mine.” 

And Faith thinks about the ringing in one ear that still, stubbornly, won’t go away, a grating whine he can feel in the back of his throat. The way the volume dials on all his setups have been slowly, slowly increasing. How the tips of his fingers go numb after a long day of training or patrol or just a fight that goes too fucking hard.

“Just the luck of the draw, I guess.” 

\---

"I'm trying to sleep here, will you just fucking turn the volume down? Shitty DJ."

\---

"Ochibi-chan, you'll never get a girl like that if you keep pouting."

\---

"Hey, DJ, I'm getting food, come with, idiot."

\---

"Fine, I guess you’re old enough, so I’ll get you in, munchkin, but you have to stay for my set."

\---

“Fuck you, are you even listening, Faith?!” 

“Of course not,” Faith says because the banter with Junior is easy and instinctive, and he registers too late what Junior  _ actually _ called him. “What?” 

“I said you need to go get ready fucking  _ now _ if we want to make it to the concert by eight,” Junior says. He kicks Faith’s chair for good measure. Faith is merely returning the favor when he snaps and sends the vibrations back up Junior’s leg. 

“Fuck you, I was trying to be nice!” Junior says with a yelp. 

“Not my mom, Junior!” Faith calls back. 

He’s still ready within the hour, and Junior only calls him shitty once the whole night. 

\---

(“Even  _ you _ aren’t as shitty a DJ as that fucker, and they still let that trash get on the stage?”

“Careful, or I might think you’re complimenting me.”

“Fuck you too, I didn’t fucking mean anything, so you shut the fuck up before I fucking--”)

\---

Junior’s affair with Marion is like him: short, passionate, and hopelessly awkward. 

It starts after weeks of Faith putting up with Junior’s whinging and whining and pining like a saint because no one will put him out of his misery. Dino says it’s cute, it’s puppy love, it’s the springtime of his youth or some other nonsense. Keith just laughs. 

“Junior, I will pay you $10 to just go ask Marion out right now.” If no one will save him, then needs must. 

At least it makes Junior shut up for once, fork lifted halfway off his plate. His expression morphs from slack-jawed surprise to calculating in a second, and Faith knows he’s about to eat his words, but at least it buys him ten seconds of Marion-free time. 

“Double it, and I’ll do it.” 

“Done.” Faith slides the bill over. $20 is a small price to pay for Junior maybe finally getting his act together and leaving Faith with some peace and quiet for the first time in way too long. If it’s not Junior barking in his ears about training, it’s Junior waxing poetic about whatever Marion did on patrol, and there’s only so much of that one man should have to take. 

Junior stares at the $20 bill like he’s never seen a shred of money in his life, the corners of his mouth turning down as his eyebrows knit together. 

If he chickens out, Faith will just have to try something else because he  _ can’t _ keep living like this. 

“I’m not just doing this because you’re paying me, you know,” Junior says to the money on the table. 

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, munchkin,” Faith says. Apparently, it’s the right thing because Junior rocks to his feet, shoving his plate away in Faith’s direction and marches directly over to Marion’s table, without even taking the money. 

It’s okay. Because Faith slips it into his pocket later before Junior goes on his date. 

\---

Junior and Marion are inseparable for two weeks, Junior following Marion around like a little duckling. Except, somehow,  _ their _ room is the one they have to make out in. It’s the first (and last) time Faith remembers seeing Marion flustered, walking in on them one afternoon to change before he runs out to play a set. 

“Don’t forget your condoms, munchkin~”

Faith ducks in time for a box of tissues to go sailing over his head, but the angry squawk from Junior is worth having to explain to Billy why he has to get ready in his room instead. 

\---

A week later, their personalities catch up to them, and before the second week is out, they’re broken up and just friends. 

\---

Faith is trying the whole “be nice” thing with Junior, so he pretends  _ politely _ like he doesn’t see the angry red lines bloom on Leo’s arm when he’s a little more vicious than usual after a clean-up mission and  _ politely _ pretends like it’s not him that buys Junior a new roll of medical tape when he uses up the last of it. 

\---

Sweat drips down his side as he brings out the next box for Keith to grab hold of with his Substance. They’d lagged a bit on finding a place with graduation and everything else that came with it. (Well, that wasn’t exactly true: Faith had found a place, and then Junior decided he wanted to crash it. And there was  _ no _ way he was going to live in the same room as Junior again. So.) But something happened with someone else, and things came together, and before they knew it, they were throwing together everything from their dorm to move out. 

“If you bump it into anything, buy me a better one~” Faith calls as he plops down into the cozy armchair he’d bought from some seller online for a steal. Junior hates it, and it’s comfy. What other two reasons does he need to justify its existence? 

“We barely even started.” They have a 6th floor apartment. How is Junior back to complain  _ already _ ? Faith groans as Junior comes stalking out their new building. His compression sleeves are dark blue today. He must be getting hot. 

Maybe that’s why he’s crankier than normal. 

“Relax, aren’t you going to overheat, getting wound up like that?” Faith says with a luxurious stretch. Junior can rest when he’s dead, but Faith has no such compunctions. “You’ll give yourself heat stroke if you work too hard, and then you’ll be the reason we don’t finish moving in today.” 

“The fuck kind of excuse is that?” Junior huffs as he grabs another box. Or makes an attempt to. In the three years they’ve known each other, Junior’s long-awaited growth spurt ended up being only a few more centimeters. The cut-off for growth is now 25, or so Faith has been told. Repeatedly. And loudly. Faith magnanimously nudges it closer to the edge with his foot, and all he gets in return is a stink-eye. 

“Helping~” 

“Fuck you because I’m taking the big room then--”

“Hey, I’m the one who found the place--”

Faith snags a finger around one of Junior’s sleeves as he hops down from the truck. The moment Junior looks back is enough to give Faith the edge as he races into the building to catch the elevator just in time for Keith to step out of it. 

“Big room’s mine, munchkin,” Faith says as the doors slip shut. 

To the slowest elevator known to mankind. 

He gets out just in time to meet Junior as he’s coming out of the stairs. Their eyes lock across the hallway before they both make a break for the apartment door, left propped open while they’ve been moving. Faith nearly bowls into Dino, who’s on the floor of their soon-to-be living room putting something together, but Junior leaps right over him and whatever he’s working on with a loud whoop. 

Junior’s elbow is bony when he shoves it into Faith’s ribs trying to squish him against the wall while he scrabbles for the door knob, but Faith has the height  _ and _ weight advantage on him. He gets Junior on the ground by digging his fingers into the back of his shirt and yanking him back long enough for Faith to finally get the door open and almost,  _ almost _ claim sweet victory over the room. Until Junior barrels into him like a missile and tackles them both to the ground. 

“I still got here first,” Faith says, while Junior digs his pointy fucking elbow into his shoulder trying to get up. His left sleeve--the one Faith had grabbed outside--is slumped lower on his arm, and a trail of silver-white feathers lead up to his shoulder and beyond. “My room.”

“You cheating fucker,” Junior says with a breathless laugh. He adjusts his sleeves, and as simple as that, the scars are gone again. 

“Don’t say anything next time.”

“One of us has honor.”

“The other one has the bigger room.” 

“Fuck you, I’m going to smother you in your sleep.”

“Please do.”

\---

They eat takeout for a week before their kitchen is functioning, and even with separate rooms, Junior still drops by to lay on the foot of his bed anyways. 

\---

Junior grows his hair out after graduation. Says it gives him more of a rocker look, even though he tucks it away like a girl when they're home, piled high onto his head in a messy bun. When they're out on patrol together -- because it isn't enough that they live together and already spent three years working together -- Junior pulls it back into a ponytail. 

When it's down, like now as Faith runs his fingers and Junior’s comb through the down-soft strands to detangle the knots, it covers most of his upper arm. He wears long-sleeves around the apartment mostly, but Faith knows that if he weren't, his hair would cover the bulk of his scars. 

"It’d suck less if you just cut it, you know,” Faith says as he runs the brushes through the ends again because no less than four times is good enough for Junior. 

“Fuck no,” Junior says through gritted teeth as Faith hits a particularly bad knot. 

“It’s less work.” Faith uses the teeth of the comb to really brush through it, squinting at the stubborn strands in the low-light of his room. He should get another lamp. “For me.” 

“Who the fuck cares about you?” Junior’s left hand twists Faith’s poor comforter between his fingers. His right barely twitches in his lap. “It’s for  _ me _ , fucking moron.” 

“Because I’m taking care of it more often than you are at this rate,” Faith grumbles. Another knot slips free, and Junior sighs and all but melts against him. 

“Maybe if you pulled your weight more today.”

“Maybe if you pulled your weight  _ less _ ,” Faith doesn’t pick another tangle on purpose; it’s a happy accident to hear Junior yelp and strain against his hands as he attacks it viciously, “you wouldn’t end up like this all the time. You don’t have to roast every single drone we come across. Leave some for me next time." 

"But you don't--"

"Are we both heroes? We are. So stop pretending like you have to be mine all the damn time," Faith says. The knot comes loose, but Junior doesn't relax this time. He's silent as Faith runs his comb through his hair a few more times. Faith is in the middle of brushing his hair back to put it up again before he speaks. 

"You're part of the people I'm trying to protect." 

"I'm just as qualified as you are. Do it less." Faith wrestles with the elastic to pull Junior's hair up. "I mean, you don't have to. I don't mind taking credit for everything. Just stop expecting me to take care of you all the time when it's your own fault, munchkin." 

The bun Faith ties is messier than how Junior normally does it, and there are more strands caught in between the twists of the elastic than even he usually does, but Junior can live with it. They sit in silence on Faith's bed. Faith traces the seams off his comforter as Junior fidgets with the wrap on his hand. 

The burns hadn't been so bad this time. It’s the nerve damage that's really the killer, apparently. 

"It's not that I don't trust you to have my back," Junior says quietly as he gets up, right hand still cradled to his chest, and Faith sighs. 

"Just let me save you too sometimes." 

\---

Faith does, indeed, get to knock a drone out of its warpath straight for Junior -- Leo, he said after, because he’s twenty and figuring out his relationship still with his dad -- on their next mission. 

\---

“ _ Fuck _ .” 

Faith has been spending way too much time with Junior. The curse slips unbidden as his fingers flub over the signs again. 

“You’ve been at that for awhile now.” 

Faith scrubs a hand down his face as he pauses the video and swivels his chair around to face Leo leaning in the doorway. “Are you planning to just watch me all night? Flattered, but I charge, munchkin. I don’t think I’m in your price range.” 

“Your fingers are too stiff,” Leo says as he approaches and leans over Faith’s shoulder to study the screen. 

Faith huffs out an uncertain laugh. “I know that.”

He leans away to give Leo room to hover next to him. There’s something in his expression that Faith can’t name, something critical and calculating. The look he gets when they’re facing down a tough opponent in the field and he needs to center and think through a solution, instead of brute forcing it like he  _ wants _ . Faith scrolls back to the beginning of the video so Leo can watch as the person signs through a sentence again and he painstakingly follows along. 

“That time went fine,” Leo says with a nudge of his elbow. 

“Sure.” Faith sighs as he closes his laptop and swings around, watching his legs as Leo steps back to sit on his bed. 

The smirk that spreads across Leo’s face is irritating as hell, though, and Faith makes a face at him in response. “Knew your hearing was going to shit, though.” 

“What gave it away?” Faith asks airily, and it’s not a  _ kick _ that he delivers to Leo’s side. A mean  _ nudge _ , really.

“Sorry your hearing is going to shit.” 

Faith shrugs because if he thinks about it for too long, he might do something about it. Like break something. Or panic. “It is what it is.” 

“It’s got to be bad if you’re doing this though, isn’t it?” 

“Aha, nothing I can’t live with.” The buzzing in his ears feels like it gets louder in response. “I’ll just be like Beethoven and use vibrations to do things. I don’t need to hear to use my powers.” 

He doesn’t know that, but Leo doesn’t need to know that either. 

Victor had looked positively gleeful at the prospect of experimenting when Faith first stumbled into his office with a ringing too loud to ignore, though. 

Leo arches an eyebrow. “What do you know about Beethoven, anyways?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that I was banned from listening to his music?” 

“I’m just saying, since when were you cultured?” 

“I grew up with  _ Brad Beams _ ,” Faith rolls his eyes, and Leo nods along in solidarity, “and I’ve sampled from him before, anyways.” 

“No way, since when? Show me,” Leo demands and reaches over Faith to paw at his laptop. “You didn’t.” 

“The way you say it, I’d almost think you didn’t listen to the stuff I make,” Faith says as he elbows Leo’s arms up and out of the way. 

“You’d think right for once.” 

“Wow, I’m hurt, maybe I won’t let you listen.” 

“Just shut the fuck up and play me your fucking track already, DJ.” 

“Your wish is my command, munchkin~” 

\---

They take lessons together in the living room after that with Faith’s laptop hooked up to the TV. Leo is every inch the perfectionist he was when they were still rookies stumbling through their training period and gets on Faith’s case every time he gets something almost, but not quite, because  _ almost is going to lead to misunderstandings and then Faith is going to end up dead in a ditch somewhere _ .

\--- 

Getting together after that is a simple thing. 

Early morning briefings are a pain, but Leo wakes Faith up for it anyways -- if not by coming to get him, then by how much noise he makes getting ready. 

"You trying to wake the dead or something?" Faith says through a yawn as he shuffles into the kitchen. He'll tighten his tie later before the briefing starts. It’s a miracle enough he’s got all his buttons done in the right order. He sweeps a hand through his hair as he leans over Leo's shoulder to reach the cupboard with all their mugs. 

Breakfast is fake. Coffee is real. 

"Like fuck am I letting you miss briefing and getting stuck with Keith as a partner for the day again," Leo grouses. 

His mouth is too close, Faith realizes too late, and exceedingly kissable. 

Faith can't recall later who started it, only the hot press of Leo's mouth on his and the feeling of his thin hips under his hands and the way Leo let him bite over the silver-white curves of the scars that peaked out from under his shirt. 

\---

Leo, Faith thinks, has never looked so pleased about being late before, but flushed and rumpled is a good look on him. 

\---

In a few years, Leo's heart will stop, and Faith's will lurch into his throat at the news as he claws his way through the battlefield to reach him. 

(In a few seconds, it will start again, but not before Faith blasts through the last of his hearing with a soundwave powerful enough to rock the city.) 

In a few years, they will be legends. Symbols. Leo will be like the lightning, the light that will split and splinter over the city and vanish in what feels like a flash. A moment of breathtaking beauty, gone in an instant. Faith will be the thunder, a ponderous and rumbling and  _ furious _ thing that crashes through and lingers before it rolls sweetly away. 

In a few years, they will be  _ relics _ . Respected, but warnings of the dangers of boundaries pushed too far and science that hadn't pushed far enough. 

In a few years, Faith will still be Faith. He will learn to savor the quiet after his hearing gives out. He will learn the world in other ways: the difference between a sunrise caught from waking too early and a sunrise caught from sleeping too late; the way coming home smells like dinner on the stove; the signs of a storm in the green, damp taste in the air; the soft, electric skim of skin-on-skin when his hands skate over Leo's. 

In a few years, Leo will still be Leo. His scars will not fade, but they will wane, and he will learn to wear them with pride ( _ I earned these _ ), and then with indifference ( _ If they must be mine _ ), and later still like a coat worn soft and silken and comfortable ( _ they are mine, but I will not be theirs _ ). 

\---

Here and now, Leo is exactly the right size for Faith to tuck into his lap and hook his chin over his shoulder. The shadows grow long on the floor as they idle through Faith's mixes, where Faith queues up his favorites, and Leo picks whatever file sounds interesting, and sometimes there's nothing playing at all. 

"This one?" Leo says, and his words vibrate softly through Faith's chest. 

Faith groans as he buries his face in Leo's shoulder, cheeks burning. They're buried deep in his folders now, but he still remembers. "Hah. You're going to laugh." 

"No, I'm going to play it.”

Faith can't pick out all the lines he threw together to make this mix anymore as it starts to play, but he still remembers the Leo from that day: the terrified and determined and defiant sixteen year old, arm raised to the sky to rain fire and fury, too young and too green to know what this moment would bring and the scars that would haunt him years later.

They’re barely thirty seconds in when Leo breathes out a quick " _ wait here _ " and runs out of the room and leaves Faith's lap cold and bereft. 

"I write you a song, and you leave part-way through. What’s even the point?" Faith calls after him. He does not pout and he does not think about the clenching in his heart and soreness in his chest. It’s gone a few seconds later anyways when Leo trundles back with Big Ben Jr. in his arms. He shoves the guitar -- the  _ most _ beloved guitar in his entire collection -- into Faith’s hands, and it feels like some kind of offering that he doesn’t understand. 

"I want to be part of it too," he says, eyes bright. Leo's hands aren't the nimble, quick things they were when they were younger. His joints have stiffened with time and with age and with lightning coursing through his veins, but his fingers remember the motions as he guides Faith's into place over the strings. "And I can definitely write you a better guitar line than that. Start here, and then I'll tell you what to do next." 

They write into the night, Leo dictating as Faith plays, and by morning, there's a new track that Faith brings to his next gig. Just like last time, the crowd won't care what he plays, as long as there's a beat that reverberates into their bones and keeps them moving, but Leo will flash him a knowing smile from the bar and crash their mouths together after his set. He’ll taste like something fruity with too much alcohol in it before they make their way home for the night. 

Their Lichtenberg love song. 

**Author's Note:**

> you can follow my writing twitter [@satiIIquinart](https://twitter.com/satiIIquinart) for updates!


End file.
